Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Already the holiday season has swept down on us like Assyrians or wolves on folds, cohorts gleaming in silver and gold. All around us folks are holding out their hands for holiday socorro or urging you to some display of excess consumption. Go for it, gente. Share. Spend. Empathy for others, elegance for yourself.

Do remember, however, the best things in life are free and low calorie. For example, today's On-Line Floricanto comes at the price of a mouse click. Remembering that price does not equal cost, for the price of the mouseclick you end November 2010 with five poems selected by Francisco Alarcón and his co-moderators at Facebook's group Poets Responding to SB 1070.

Next daythe cops had onlyfour words for the press"it was a mistake",and then the headlines,"Cops Shoot Young African Man,Claim it was a Mistake"

A forty-one shot mistake?Was this a forty-one shot mistakeor was it shooting practicefor three white cops?A good target to practice on-black man on a city street.

Maybe they were fantasizingto be hunters on the tropical city streets ofthe Bronx?Maybe they were just high out of their minds-coke-copsinstead ofgood ol' coffee and doughnut boys.Maybe they were terroriststrained to kill anythingdark that moves in the night-oh, that's right, these were American copsnot dark foreign terroristswith hard to pronounce namesand curly black hair.These were good ol' boysclean cut boyswith easy to pronounce nameslike Seanand Johnand let me not go on-no, let me not go on...let me just pause hereand close my eyesand sit quietlyand light a candle

for:

-Amadou Diallo in the South Bronx-Kiko Garcia in Washington Heights-Malice Green in Detroit-Rodney King in Los Angeles-Timothy Thomas in Cincinnatti-Abner Louima in Brooklyn-Sean Bell in Queens-Manuel Jamines in Los Angeles-Sergio Hernandez in El Paso/Ciudad Juarez-Anthony Baez in the South Bronx-Woodrow Player in Los Angeles-Anastasio Hernandez Rojas in San Diego-James Brisette in New Orleans-Ruben Salazar in Los Angeles-Oscar Grant in Oakland

All these menUNARMED-blown away by cop gunssuffocated to an early deathkicked to a bloody messall by copsall in the line of dutypayed for byyou and meand uncle Sam's taxesto protect our free society.

Most of these mendied,some survived-andnot onenot onewas white.But let us not make race an issue,nolet us not make race an issue,lest we make some people uncomfortable.These words :"Let us not make race an issue..."soundlike a politician's lame speechabout how Americais a perfect little melting potwhere all races live side by side andhappily ever after.

Oh pleaseeeeewho are we kidding?and-why should I not make race an issue?whenIt'sA FACTthat an overwhelming majorityof police brutality victimsareblack and latino men.It'sA FACTit is not an exaggerated statement not an emotional response to the latest shooting not my imagination-this last one in response to peoplewho've told methey don't "see colors"-nope.Some people say theydon't see colors-almost implying thatwhen I see colors ( where there are no colors)it's all a part ofmy "colorful" imagination.

Well,it is not my imaginationthat the war on drugsand the war on crimeis not about the massive number of white folksdoing drugs,orselling drugs.No,white folks "just" use and sell drugsno big deal for cops or judges-the war isn't about them.

The war on drugsandthe war on crimeis aboutpeople of color.It's aJim Crowwarwith aJim Crowjudicial systemand aJim Crowpolice forcethatguns down youthfor the "crimminal" act ofwalking down the street"whileblack or brown"A system thatputs youngpeople of colorbehind bars fordoing the same thingswhite kids doexceptwhite kidsdon't get caught as often-because they're nothunted down as much.A systemthatpins down people of color intoprison sentencesthat areby and large,much tougher-thusconveniently creatinganeatefficientorderlyandoh so"legal"way ofdisposingof them.

But maybe the worst thing that this system doesis that it

kills people's dreams...

So, as much as this might make some peopleuncomfortableto hear:Race IS STILL an issue...and being colorblind,claiming not to see color-doesn't make thingsjust go away.In fact, pretending not to see racemakes things worse.Bottom line is thatrace is STILL an issueandit has always BEEN an issue-or do you really thinkit just went awayafter the civil rights movement-and thatall men are created equalin thisland of the free?

To all the Poets, Authors and Song writers,To those that are against SB1070 and acts inhumane.To all the U.S. Veterans that have been deported... ?!!To those in positions of 'power' but shouldn't, because they are inept!To all the border fences, may they all come down some day...To those that for one reason or another, at this moment, are in pain...To those that no matter what, if or when, ARE always content!To those that are separated from their Loved ones...To all the women who continue to be the target of violenceTo those that are blinded by the illusion of hate...To All the Beautiful Children (and their parents) of the World!To those that keep on going, sharing their WISDOM and their STRENGTH!!To All the members of my Beloved Family!To All my Friends, far or near, I LOVE you all the same!To my Ancestors! To my Teachers! Nothing more needs to be said.To ALL the Yoga Teachers Trainees of Fall of 2010!!To everyone that has 'written' on this page.To those that want to, but haven't, or can't...To LOVE, COMPASSION, KINDNESS, INTEGRITY, COURAGE, HOPE, AND FAITH!!To HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS...To my BELOVED MOTHER...To you, me, and them...

~Victoria Pérez-Hovda~ November 17, 2010

THE MEXICAN WITCH PROJECT HERE, TO UNDO A SPELL

by Diana Joe

THE MEXICAN WITCH PROJECT HERE, TO UNDO A SPELLTHE BRUJAS HAVE ARRIVEDTHEY CAME WITH THE SNOWI SUMMONED THEM

I ASKED THEM,...NO, I BEGGED THEM TO COME.IT TOOK THEM A WHILE BUT THEY HAVE ARRIVEDTHE MEXICAN WITCH PROJECTTHAT IS WHAT I AM CALLING THIS,THEIR ARRIVAL,THIS GATHERING.

IT'S HERE AT MY HOUSEIN THE MIDDLE OF THE MOUNTAINSTHEY ARE ALL BEAUTIFULMARTINA, HERMINIA,ANGELINA,PLACIDA, HORTENCIA, URSULAPAULINA, ALBERTINA LAS MEJORES.

YA LLEGARON !YA ESTAN AQUI.THEY HAVE TIED THEIR HAIREDIN A SPECIAL WAY... WITH LISTONES DE COLORESREPRESENTING THE YERBAS AND FLORES.THEY WASHED WITH ROMERO Y XOCHITLSAND THEY SMELL SO GOOD.

THEY ARE WEARING HUIPILES FROM 1507AND FALDAS A MEDIA PIERNA DE TODOS COLORES.THEY ARRIVED WITH THE SNOW.I CALL IT THE MEXICAN WITCH PROJECTTHEY ARE HERE TO UNDO A SPELL.

THEY ARE THE BEST!NOT LIKE THE REST.HERE THEY ARE READYTO UNDO THE SPELLTHAT HAS US FEELING SICK.

THEY COOKED UP MAGIC NOPALESTHEY'D BROUGHT FOR BREAKFAST..WITH CRAWFISH FROM THE LAKE TEXCOCO.THEY SERVED ME A PLATE WITH FRIJOLESNEGROSTHAT THEY SAY THEY HAVE PLANTED IN ONE OF THE FIELDSNEXT TO THE WATERFALLSOMEWHERE IN THE SELVA..AND EVERYBODY LOVES THEM.

LAS BRUJAS BENDITAS DE MEXICOTHEY TELL ME TO HAVE A GOOD BREAKFASTTHEY LAUGH BEAUTIFULLY AND ANNOUNCETHAT THERE'S LOTS OF WORK TO DOTHEY REMIND ME TO BUILD UP A GOOD FUEGO.THEY TELL ME HOW TO DO IT AND TOPLACE THERE INSIDE OF IT,A PIERDA LUMBRE.SO THEY CAN SEE THE MAL..LOS MALES.

The beautiful brujas de Méxicoall rise to their feet looking at the piedra..HORTENCIA CRIES AND SAYS MIRA NO MAS-LOSNINOS TAMBIEN!THE MEXICAN WITCH PROJECT BEGINS

A CHANT, A CLAPPING OF HANDS,A CRY!THE WIND IS NOW HOWLING ,ASKS FOR PERMISSION N JOINS THEM!THE CLOUDS MOVE AWAY TO LET THE SUN IN..TONATIUN REINFORCES THE FIRE!THE TREE ACROSS THE STREET LOOKS THROUGH THEWINDOW AS IF WANTING TO PEEK AT THE PIEDRA LUMBRE.

THE WHOLE NIEGHBORHOOD WHERE I LIVE,IS PLACED IN DEEP SLEEP NOBODY CAN BE PART OF THISINTERPRETTION...THIS CURACION THIS MEDIATION!ONLY THE MOUNTAIN,THE DEER NATION AND THE FROZEN PRECIPITATION.

EVERYTHING HAPPENED FAST.THE ALTAR LOOKS GOOD.THE ALTAR LOOKS WELL DRESSED.THE ALTAR IS READY FOR THE TEST.IN A CIRCLE WITH A BREAK TO THE WEST.IN A CIRCLE WITH WOMEN FROM MEXICOTHAT HAVE ARRIVED TO ANSWER MY PRAYER.

1. "Gandhi Came to Arizona" by Victor AvilaVictor is an educator, poet and songwriter. He has been teaching for over twenty years in California schools. He is a widely published poet and a songwriter who's songs have been covered by many artists.

2. "Race Is An Issue" by Leticia Diaz-PerezLeticia Diaz-Perez was born in Virginia and raised in Michigan.She attended the University of Michigan, where she graduated with a BA/English and American Literature and an MA/Spanish and Latin American Literature. While at the University of Michigan she co-hosted "Radio Caliente" at WCBN FM , one of the first Latino radio shows in the Ann Arbor area. It was at WCBN that she interviewed Latino writers Pedro Pietri, Tato Laviera, Trinidad Sanchez,Sandra Cisneros and Piri Thomas-inspiring her to start writing and telling her story.Leticia has taught Spanish at the University of Michigan and in the Michigan public school system. She also taught in the New York City public school system, (4th grade bilingual teacher) where she had the opportunity to work with a group of beautiful children who had recently arrived from the Dominican Republic.Leticia is currently working on her first book of poems, "Sugar from the Sky".

3. "To All of Us!" by Victoria Hovda

Victoria Pérez-Hovda

Born in México, in the State of Nayarit.Scorpio in Sun and under the Brilliance of a Full Moon Light.Her Love for Nature and Poetry in action, began very early and became her refuge, a tool to help her cope with the hostile world, that at times, she lived in.She lived in Tijuana, Baja California; during very important formative years.Immigrated to The United States at the age of 19.San Diego California has been her Home for the last thirty years.

Victoria is a Certified Bikram Yoga Teacher, and an avid practitioner of the same yoga she teaches.She believes in the therapeutic, healing power of Yoga, Meditation and Poetry.But above all, She believes that her loving family is her Greatest accomplishment and gift.A "Perennial Student of Life" is how she prefers to see herself.and because she believes in the power of the spoken and written word, and because she passionately loves what she does; when she is asked, "how was work?"...her response:"I do not work... I Write, I Love, and I TEACH."

Monday, November 29, 2010

Ten years ago, at the age of 41, I did something that forever changed the trajectory of my personal life.

No, I did not leave my brilliant, beautiful wife. Nor did I abandon my legal career with the California Department of Justice.

Ten years ago, I published my first book, The Courtship of María Rivera Peña, a novella loosely based on my paternal grandparents’ migration from Mexico to Los Angeles in the late 1920s. It garnered a few nice reviews, but didn’t sell many copies. And the small Pennsylvania press that published it eventually went under so that the book has now gone out of print.

Here it is, 10 years later, and I’m still a government lawyer married to my law school sweetheart. Our son is in college and becoming a fine, interesting young man. But my first little book put me on a road to something so exciting and emotionally fulfilling that it holds a special place in my heart.

That road has taken me to the publication of three short-story collections and one children’s picture book. My fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction appear in eight anthologies, including in two published by the venerable W. W. Norton & Co. Next year, the University of Arizona Press will publish my first full-length novel, The Book of Want. I’ve also become a recognized book critic for several publications including the El Paso Times, the MultiCultural Review, and a nationally-recognized blog on Latino literature, La Bloga. My books have been studied by undergraduate and graduate students across the country at such institutions as Rutgers, Ohio State University, the University of Wyoming, and the University of California, Irvine, to name a few. Scholars cite to my fiction and interviews in books on Latino literature. I’ve edited a landmark anthology of Latino fiction, Latinos in Lotusland, and my first poetry collection is making the rounds with publishers.

In short, my second act has cast me as a writer.

On many levels, this second act has come along with a bit of irony. When I majored in English at Stanford University (back when my hair was long and we danced to the Bee Gees), I had no intention of doing something as risky as “becoming a writer.” In fact, I purposely avoided taking any creative writing classes because I thought that it would be a frivolous thing to do. So, I went to law school, spent a few years in private practice, and then in 1990, I was hired into the Public Rights Division of the California Department of Justice. I’ve been there ever since.

But I always loved writing. As a law student at UCLA, I edited the Chicano Law Review and published a piece on an important immigration court decision. As an attorney, I’ve written many articles for the Los Angeles Daily Journal on such subjects as civil procedure, law and motion practice, and environmental enforcement. And, of course, every day at work, I write briefs, legal memoranda, and letters to opposing counsel. The written word filled my world.

Then, in late 1998, I started that first little book, a novella based on family history. I wrote about the great joys and sadness in life and explored what the immigrant experience must have felt like for people such as my grandparents who came to California from Mexico almost a hundred years ago. When I completed the novella in 1999 and sold it to a little press in Pennsylvania, the creative writing floodgates opened. I couldn’t stop writing fiction. As my short stories started getting published in literary journals, I began to dabble in poetry, and then book reviews.

I’m certainly not the first attorney to write fiction. We all know about Scott Turow and John Grisham. But there are also Latino and Latina lawyers who have made their mark as writers such as Michael Nava, Yxta Maya Murray, and Nicolás Vaca, to name but a few who live and write in California. These attorneys all have excelled in the legal profession yet they also have been recognized for their evocative and often provocative books that explore the Latino experience from decidedly different angles.

My “other life” has led me to experiences that have been markedly different from my life as a lawyer. I’ve read fiction and poetry at high schools, colleges, bookstores and scholarly conferences. This has introduced me to lovers of literature, which by itself, would be enough to validate my second act.

But I’ve also had high school and college students, many of whom are Latino, come up to me after readings and tell me that they want to write. These bright, eager young people see my second act as something they want to do as their first act. My response is always the same: If you want to become a writer, stay in school and read, read, read.

I don’t regret waiting until middle age to become a writer. In many ways, I think my fiction and poetry are deeper and richer because I’ve lived more than a few years as a husband, father and (yes) lawyer.

And I admit that my second act has been a surprise to me, my family and my friends. But I’ve learned that life can be surprising. Who knows. Maybe there’s a third act in my future.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Inside the psyche of a young man being tortured in that cell at the top of a hill there is a book that will one day tell his story: The Blessing Next to the Wound. A political memoir rife with intimate and harrowing details of fractured life, this book takes deeply personal wounds on a journey to global healing. This is the story of Hector Aristizábal, a Colombian theater artist, activist and psychologist. It is about some difficult issues—abortion, homophobia, drug addiction, racism, exile, prison, immigration, murder, torture, and the U.S. juvenile justice system. It is about the intersection of creativity, ruptured reality, ritual, and therapy. And it is about Colombia, where the story begins and returns to at critical junctures.

Co-written with Diane Lefer, The Blessing takes place in Medellín, Colombia and Los Angeles, California, with many stops throughout the world. Aristizábal hails from the low-income barrios on the outskirts of Medellín. Rounded up at four in the morning in 1982 by the army in search of guerrilleros, the twenty-two year old university student was taken to a compound where he underwent questioning along with beatings, waterboarding, electric shocks, mock executions, and psychological terror. Ten days later, thanks to pressure from human rights activists, he was released (and went into hiding). His brother Juan Fernando, who had also been arrested, was imprisoned for several months for carrying a machete. In 1999, when his brother was murdered by paramilitaries for his past ties to the Ejército de Liberación Nacional guerrilla group, the enraged Aristizábal demanded an autopsy of his brother’s corpse and photographed the event.

Out of this experience came “Nightwind,” a solo play that re-enacts Aristizábal’s torture and his brother’s autopsy. Co-created with author Diane Lefer and musician Enzo Fina, Aristizábal performs “Nightwind” in the U.S. and around the world.

“The play opened doors for me,” he says. Diane Lefer, Hector and I meet for coffee and conversation one morning in Pasadena. He’s recently returned from an ayahuasca retreat in the Amazon jungle, where he experienced the plant’s healing, illuminating, and maddening psychedelic “pintas” for the first time. Later tonight, he’s heading to Nepal to perform “Nightwind” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman” at the Kathmandu International Theatre Festival. “‘Nightwind’ opened the chamber of torture for people to see inside, opening the chamber for me to come out of it and not continue to live in it.”

The play also led to further collaboration between Lefer and Aristizábal, including writing and publishing magazine articles. The two joined political and artistic forces after people responded with suggestions that they write a book. Armed with Hector’s journal and his Masters thesis, Diane immersed herself in his voice and interviewed him, his family and others for further details. “Writing the book was harder on me than on him,” she says. “Telling your own story can be cathartic. Putting yourself in someone else’s head, that’s something else. Also I kind of lost track of myself for the years we worked on this, being so identified with his experience.”

Disgusted with U.S. politics and this country’s role in the world, Diane dropped out of college and ran away to Mexico years ago. She refers to herself as a “young idiot” for the time she took a bus through Guatemala and “got a guy with a motorcycle to take me into the United Fruit Company plantation,” where she marched to the manager’s house and demanded to see “the books.” Today, she is hooded and wears an orange Guantanamo outfit on her profile picture on Facebook. This was taken by Robin Lynne Gibson, a photographer who witnessed Lefer in street protest attire the day she was mistaken for a terrorist by the Los Angeles Police Department. The Facebook caption reads, “I thought I’d be able to change the photo by now.”

Lefer writes fiction, advocacy journalism, drama, and nonfiction. She avidly supports Duc Ta, a young man who’s been unjustly locked up in California prisons since 1999. Her activist affiliations include Witness for Peace, the Program for Torture Victims, and the Colombia Peace Project. As her “young idiot” spirit lives on, Diane Lefer is just about the perfect person to bring The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism and Transformation to light.

How did Hector like having his voice channeled by Diane? “It was fantastic. I didn’t have to sit,” he says. “The book exists thanks to Diane, her artistry. She forced me to go deeper… She provided the structure and made final decisions.” One decision she made was to cast the protagonist as truthfully as possible without glossing over his flaws. “When he does workshops, people come to him like he’s this great hero… I want people reading the book to feel like they can overcome anything that’s happened in their past. He’s not perfect. He has issues.”

A structural decision she made was to carry the story back and forth, from Colombia to the U.S. and beyond, out of chronological order, letting the themes drive the narrative. In twelve chapters, we are exposed to a man’s private life—a marriage that blooms and crumbles before our eyes, the lingering psychological effects of torture, a fetus pumping with life that falls into the palms of the hands, a group of men shedding tears for the grieving brother who is unable to cry for himself. Just as important are sociopolitical discussions about complex issues brought out from the personal, and abundant anecdotes and psychological perspectives about people healing through crisis.

With this approach, The Blessing transcends any one person’s experience. For example, “Life from Barren Rock” is a chapter about Hernán Dario, Hector’s thirty-one year old brother who is dying of AIDS after a lifetime of unacknowledged and unaccepted homosexuality. While the chapter centers on his dying brother’s life, it is also about homophobia, the sexilio of gay Latin Americans who leave their countries of birth to live freely as homosexuals, transgender mujeres in Los Angeles, and the power of ritual.

A lot happens in The Blessing, and it took me a bit to get accustomed to narrative jumping around—from personal voice to political discourse, from Medellín to Palestine to Passover dinner, from Hector being in one country, then another, on and on. The book is packed with so many references and information, I wish it had an index. And I appreciate how Colombia is represented here; I can see it vividly. This book is great for anyone who wants to understand the country’s complex history, with concise explanations of La Violencia, guerrilla groups, cocaine mafias, paramilitaries, and phenomena such as los gamines, los deshechables (the disposible ones), young hired killers known as sicarios, and much more.

With training in the performance arts in Colombia, Masters degrees in psychology and marriage and family counseling, twenty years of psychotherapy under his belt, serious personal drama and a penchant for mixing it all up, Aristizábal has developed, over time, a comprehensive and creative approach to healing. He travels the world now, teaching techniques inspired by Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. “I also bring psychodrama and the use of ritual, using theatre as a laboratory to explore alternatives to conflict, and theatre with community groups to reconnect with roots of where we come from.” He has offered his workshops all over, including Palestine, Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Northern Ireland, Israel, Canada, Spain, Colombia, Cuba, and the U.S. In Southern California, he has worked with marginalized communities—immigrants, gang members, torture survivors, pregnant teenagers, AIDS patients, “at risk” students and youth in juvenile detention centers.

His subject matter is heavy, I say. How can you focus so much energy on everything that’s painful and wrong in the world? “I hear you, I hear that from my family,” he says. “My sister says ‘you’re morboso’.”

But I won’t tag him as morbid. It’s just that he “goes there” to places that are ugly and uncomfortable. And he stays there long enough to recount, explore, bear witness, find the blessing, and transform.

“My wounds have informed my work,” he says. His brother’s homosexuality and struggle against homophobia inspired him to become a therapist. The time spent with his dying brother led to his work in hospice. He framed his experience with torture as an initiation that marked the beginning of a new life. The death of his murdered brother brought shamanism into his personal healing. When confronted with teenage peace activists from Colombia’s Red Juvenil, his internal terrorist shifted out of retaliation.

“The wound is a tomb for the things that need to die and for the things that are born out of the wound… Most traditional societies believe that when something happens to a person it is important to pay attention to it and find meaning in it, not pretend it didn’t happen.” He uses medical analogy to make his case: a physical wound requires cleaning and disinfecting before it can be sewn up. “In psychic wounds, the idea is not to wound ourselves but to look inside to see what happened to us. What are the internal resources that are awakened in us? … The idea is sufrimiento. To suffer is to bear it, to be able to understand what is in pain… to learn from the pain.”

I get it. A part of me wishes I had not read this book because there are things I’ve tucked away that I don’t want to feel or remember. Yet I am grateful that a book exists to take me there. “We have to do the soul’s work, which is going to the darkness to find the light,” says Hector. “That’s ayahuasca. You go to a dark place and see things; that’s where the light is. You go to the jungle to go into your own jungle. It is a paradox, but it is a beautiful one.”

--------The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and Transformation by Hector Aristizábal and Diane Lefer. Lantern Books, 2010. Available in paperback and e-book format for Amazon’s kindle.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

It was as if an expedition of black Africans had made their way up the Nile and across the Mediterranean to Italy and were trying to make enough sense of the Roman Empire of the Caesars to attempt to conquer it. – Norman Spinrad, Mexica

I think we need to make Norman Spinrad an honorary Chicano. His novel of the conquest of Mexico, Mexica, is the reason. It was published in Spanish in Mexico, where it was a bestseller. A film is in the works, in English, from El Uno productions.

Those are things that not many Chicano/Latino writers have accomplished. But, before you go online or to you're favorite bookstore to grab a copy, don't bother. This amazing novel is not available in English, or in America. Seems that Nueva York has treated Norman Spinrad like a Chicano.

He and his agent bounced the book all over Nueva York -- and couldn't sell it. Spinrad reports that most of the rejections were on on the assumption that:

. . . American readers wouldn't be interested in an historical novel about the key event in Mexican history, this in a country where there are at least 40 or 50 million Mexican-Americans fluent in English whose very culture and ethnic identity were the result.

Yet Mexica has a potential appeal far beyond the Latino Lit market. It's one of those books that has everything. Not just a bit of ethnic studies and historical curiosity, this rather straight reportage of the Conquest is more fantastic than the best science fiction and fantasy. It makes Star Wars and Lord of the Rings look mundane. There's action, adventure, horror, even romance. You want wild entertainment? Well, here it is!

It's also a powerful rendering of an important subject. Spinrad's viewpoint character, a Jewish Spaniard who had lived under the Muslims and the Inquisition, provides a fresh perspective to the Mexica (it is pointed that “Aztec” was derogatory term, like Chicano once was), and Spaniards who are equally alien to the modern reader. The rich complexities of Latino identity become clear:

Marina, who had been Malinal, smiled at Alvaro de Sevilla, who had been Alvaro Escribiente de Granada, who in his heart was still Avram ibn Ezra or in truth Avram ben Ezra.

As history goes on, identities change. Maybe that's what Nueva York is afraid of . . .

So why am bothering you with all this, if you can't buy this book? Well, the good news is, you can! But not in the old way. Spinrad has released Mexica as an ebook. Nueva York's days as the literary capital of the world are numbered. A revolution has begun. And the changes that will come for readers, writers, and publishers will be comparable to those that happened when Cortes conquered Tenochitlán.

The first time I heard of the author, Sandra Cisneros, I took an extra breath and adouble take. I had a childhood friend named Sandra Cisneros. Wow, she wrote her first novel just out of high school, I thought. As I learned more about the author of The House on Mango Street, I started to realize that La mera Sandra Cisneros could not have been my childhood friend. La mera Sandra was born in Chicago and stayed there long enough to attend college at the University of Loyola. My childhood friend always dressed in matching clothes; unlike myself who rolled out of bed and went to school in my pajamas or long underwear beneath my clothes. Those days, I didn’t care who saw me in what. Come to think of it, I still don’t care and find it perfectly acceptable to run to the store in sweats or presentable pajamas. The kind that you can open the door and receive a package from UPS. By presentable pajamas I mean fairly new ones, not the old ones you keep for sentimental purposes, such as la bata with the holes on the sleeves or la camiseta with the mole stains. The pajama or el pijama remains the writer’s business suit for most writers. (Foto: Sandra Cisneros poses with a student at UCSB.)

Last Wednesday, La Sandra spoke at UC Santa Barbara and guess what her outfit was? Yes, pajamas. Blue flannel polka dotted pajamas bought that day at Kmart, she said. She was the guest of the Multi-Cultural Center and the Chicano Studies Departments. La Sandra mentioned that professor Mario Garcia was instrumental in bringing her to UCSB and also in getting her started on the lecture circuit. In the fall of 1990 professor Garcia asked Sandra if she would give a talk for a series on minority women writers in his capacity as Director of Ethnic Studies at Yale. “Sandra was just getting to be recognized and coming to Yale was a big encouragement for her,” he said. “She was a big hit.”

She continues to be a big hit as last year marked the 25th anniversary edition of her first novel, The House on Mango Street.

The title of her UCSB talk was “Writing in the Time of Mexiphobia, or Packing Your Papers.” Given the hostile laws that discriminate against Mexicans in Arizona, Sandra stressed the importance of Buddha and Thich Nhat Hanh. Her solution, appropriate for this week of Thanksgiving, is to write love letters to our failing politicians. She read a chapter from her new book in progress, Writing in Your Pajamas. This pajama business is serious, but cozy. Sandra stressed the importance of setting a comfortable space for writing. During her last visit to Santa Barbara, she recalled how cold our seaside town was in the evenings and mornings.I bet she was toasty in her flannel jammies. She took a poll to ask who in the audience had also worn their pajamas. A few hands flew up. I would’ve arrived in my pajamas too had I been given the jammie memo. The pink fleece I’ve taken to wearing this time of year can be mistaken for pajamas, especially when I don the matching fuzzy pants.

This was my first time hearing Sandra speak. I was extremely curious because I have often been compared to her. People tell me, you sound a lot like Sandra Cisneros. I am, of course, extremely flattered by the comparison, but, as I listened, I wondered if I sounded like her. Maybe, the two or three people who have made the comparison were being polite. La Sandra spoke with childlike innocence, even while reading her mature short story about Mrs. Frida Kahlo Rivera. From Sandra’s photographs, I expected a woman with a huskier voice. Something about her photographic gaze says cigarette smoker, prefers beer to sweet wine, but her voice says bubblegum and pajama parties. Comfort, sincerity, and brotherly love were the main themes of her talk. She promised not to disappoint, and she did not. She regaled the audience with family stories and a message of peace.

Perhaps if we all went to work in pajamas the world would be less hostile and our neighbor, Arizona, would stop spreading fear and hatred.

I thank God for many things, including those things we no longer have (in office).

Tuesday contributor: Michael SedanoBe thankful for what you ought to be thankful. Everything else, you earned.

mvs

Wednesday contributor: René Colato Laínez

"Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto" is a very popular Spanish ballad. Gracias a la vida for our familias, traditions and dreams. Gracias for ganas for a better future. Open you window and celebrate saying, "Gracias" and hugging your loved ones. If they are not near you, call them or remember them in your pensamientos and memories.

Friday contributor #1: Manuel RamosThis year it all comes down to family.

Friday contributor #2: Melinda PalacioMy birthday usually falls on or around Thanksgiving. I am grateful for having been blessed with a wonderful mother. I thank everyone who helps me take on another day without Blanca Estela Palacio, 1949-1994.

Saturday contributor #1: Rudy Ch. GarciaConsider all the things you have to be grateful for that were not your doing and that you need to thank someone else for.And remember those who have little to be thankful for, especially if it wasn't of their making.

Saturday contributor #2: Ernest Hogan

Oké, oké . . . a bullfight video on Facebook got me woken up enough to do this. A lot of good things keep coming my way despite all the flying caca in the world. I hope all of you catch more of the good stuff! Now, bring on that sacrificed turkey . . .

Sundaycontributor: tatiana de la tierra

The origin of the Thanksgiving holiday unsettles me, but I do groove on the “attitude of gratitude.” Recently I attended a “Love and Healing” session with Galexis, a group of channeled beings, on the topic of thanksgiving. Here are a few snippets of what Galexis said: “When you are in a state of thankfulness, when you are in a place of gratitude, you are more open than ever to the energies of receiving. Giving and receiving are a pair; you can’t have one without the other.… When you are in gratitude, what you give comes from the heart. You can receive to your heart, to spirit, to soul, you can receive to nurture yourself.… Healing yourself can be done beautifully using the power of gratitude… Thanksgiving is a celebration of abundance. ‘Thanks giving’ is giving thanks to that which gives to you the divine in you. It gives thanks to others for being part of your life. It’s giving thanks for the financial support, for the resources, for the bounty that has come your way. It is an appreciation of the spirit of all things in all things. Gratitude is a celebration of oneness.” For me, I’m grateful for my life, my friends and family, and for this beautiful Earth that I get to frolic in.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Last year, I completed illustrations for my first picture book. The Runaway Piggy, written by James Luna (Piñata Books / debuts Nov. 30, 2010) is a Latino take on the Gingerbread Man story, featuring a Mexican sweet bread cochinito (piggy cookie).

I had been sending postcard samples of my art to Piñata Books (an imprint of Arte Público Press) every six months or so for several years. I had never heard a peep from them until I received an email from the production manager asking if I would be interested in providing Piñatawith a “character concept” for a new bilingual picture book called, The Runaway Piggy. I was thrilled! There were other artists trying out for the same job (four illustrators total, I later found out). Piñata would choose one illustrator based on the character concept they submitted, and that person would win the contract to illustrate the book. I jumped at the chance to break into children’s picture book illustration -- a long-held dream of mine.

In order to execute the black and white character concept “audition” drawing, Piñata provided me with the manuscript and requested that I select a scene from the story to illustrate. I purposely chose a scene of medium complexity -- one that showed a lot of action, yet would not require a huge crowd or an aerial perspective. I worked almost one month on the research and creation of the drawing I would ultimately submit.

One of the biggest challenges for me with that first drawing was that the story was set in an inner-city neighborhood. I had avoided rendering buildings or cityscapes my entire artistic career. I had always been most comfortable drawing and painting “organic” earthy figures and shapes. Well, I needed to say goodbye to comfort and face my fears head on. I knew if I were going to draw buildings, I would have to find a way to make the buildings work for me, to somehow translate them into my own style. One morning, on a walk through my neighborhood in Venice, Calif., I took a turn down Abbott Kinney Blvd. I noticed the unique mixture of quaint and artsy-hip architecture, which created an atmosphere of a city street with a small-town feeling. I took out my notebook and pen and made sketches of my favorite doorways, windows and awnings. When I got home, I began doing the rough sketches for my concept drawing. At first, the buildings looked too stiff, as I had feared. That is when I stopped to look at other picture books for inspiration. This usually helps me free up and loosen up. It worked -- the solution was simple! I would curve the lines of the buildings and streets and make them just as alive and organic as any of the figures. The sketch was finally coming together.

Now, all I needed to do was to create the mischievous piggy cookie that would run through the streets, eluding the townspeople at every turn.

When I first got the manuscript, I was familiar with some Mexican sweet bread, but I had never heard of cochinitos (piggy cookies). Being from a Cuban background, I grew up eating pasteles de guayaba, frituritas de papa, and flan.

A trip to the neighborhood Mexican bakery was in order. (Hey, it was in the name of research!) I bought my first piggy cookie, took it home to study, make sketches based on its simple piggy shape, and, of course, to enjoy it with my morning coffee! Next, I collected photo references from the web of more Mexican sweet bread cochinitos (no two bakers bake alike), of actual pigs running, and, finally, illustration samples from traditional Gingerbread Man books. Combining all these visuals helped me come up with an animated version of the piggy cookie.

Then, to figure out how the cookie would look in action -- from different angles and positions -- I made a clay model of my piggy and used it to further develop the character in my drawing.

OK, so all this may sound like a lot of work, but, in the end, it paid off. Two weeks after submitting my drawing, I received an e-mail telling me that my character concept drawing was chosen, and I had won the Piñata contract to illustrate The Runaway Piggy! I was so excited, I ran around my kitchen like a piggy with its head bitten off! I was on my way to becoming a full-fledged picture book illustrator.

The character concept I had spent a month perfecting set the stage for the rest of my work on the book. I had visually established a town, some of its local residents (Lorenzo, the mechanic, and Mama Nita, the beauty shop owner) and the animated piggy cookie that would race through every scene. After signing the contract with Arte Público/Piñata, the many months that followed of sketches, final drawings and paintings were as exhilarating as they were exhausting! I breathed a huge sigh of relief on the day of that final brush stroke, but nonetheless, it was a bittersweet goodbye to The Runaway Piggy.

Luckily, there is a recipe in the back of the book, so I can bake my own cochinitos at home. And, if one of my homemade piggy cookies should happen to escape, it just might be found running down Abbott Kinney Boulevard.

JAMES LUNA is an elementary school teacher in Riverside, California. This is his first published book.

LAURA LACAMARA is a Cuban-American artist and author. Floating on Mama’s Song / Flotando en la canción de mamá, her picture book illustrated by Yuyi Morales, was published by HarperCollins in 2010. The Runaway Piggy is the first picture book she has illustrated. Laura lives in Venice, California, with her family.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Selected by moderators of the Facebook group Poets Responding to SB 1070. Visit the group for details on submitting work to the moderators, index of poems submitted, fbtalk and similar. (Editor's note: some typographical features do not copy from Facebook to La Bloga. Apologies for not honoring the look of the piece. mvs)

1. "Cross Roads" by Poeta Power

2. "Last Words" by Manuel Lozano

3. Excerpt from "La revolución emplumada | the revolution is to be human" by Arnoldo Garcia

4. "Travesía Cósmica (Molino de Vida y Muerte)" by Araceli Collazo

5. "Monsignor Romero / Monseñor Romero" by Francisco X. Alarcón

"Cross Roads"by Poeta Power

Cross Roads(Written at the Mundo Zurdo Conference)RO

by Poeta Power

Cross Roads (in four parts)

1.Out the windowI’ve thrown a lemoninto the grapefruit groveat the Y on highway 107

Here I have left envidiaque la gente me tieneporque así sonenvidiosos

out the window all the negative energy everyone who has cursed me everyone que se ponen celososporque soy muy chingonaah! no te crees

Aquí at the crossroadsMe persino

En el nombre depoesíaantepasadosy el futuró

when standing at the crossroads¡cuidado!Porque dicen que aquí se aparece la LloronaI’ve heard stories about spirits who can’t find restDon’t know which way to go, which direction.

She came to me in crazy twisted dreams,Said, “Everything is exactly as it seems,The cutting edge is everywhere,And it all sprouts into a living nightmare”I opened my eyes and took a glanceAcross the dimming room at mystery’s circumstanceDressing up before the antique dresser.In her woven bag she had my beating heart,I somehow thought I could out-guess her,But she had me right from the start.

“Take your chance on a broken bottle,Might as well drown in a little puddle,”She looked at me and licked her lips,Tapped her foot and rocked her hips,Continued, “Nothing is better than this rant,You wish to catch me, but you can’t,In here it is the phrasing that is twisted.”She swirled her drink and took a swig,Put her index finger to her lips and kissed it,Yes, my broken dreams were always big.Which way was out I wondered?My thoughts were too wild to be plundered,Words are more than just communication,Her eyes were weary of interpretation.I knew that silence was my only choice,At least until she asked to hear my voiceRecite some sort of wicked verse.I knew she felt she had it made,I thought about that rant of hers,Her voice was some enticing serenade.

Her tender ways came shining through,Her dress constricting with its cobalt blue,She lit a match and took a drag,The rising smoke a ship with pirate’s flag.It dipped and swayed then sailed along,

I kept thinking about her siren songTaunting me to give some sort of chase.All traces of reality had long since blurred,My pulse was speeding through the race,But still I didn’t say a single word.

Smiling she said, “You seem so quiet,Cats as yourself seek the night to defy it,I bet without darkness you’d put up no fight,I see you constantly leaning into the light.”Clearly I thought that it was more than wordplay,It all turned to black pearls the philosophical wayAs she swallowed me whole with the corner of her eye.Turning she asked me, “So what is the plan?”Her shoulders were ravens reaching for the sky,And I answered, “I’m trying as best as I can.”

Her radiance flickered with my response,The ravens exploded and turned into swans,I squinted my eyes, but before I could think,She reached for the bottle and poured me a drink.The liquid red velvet poured into the glassAs another ship drifted with flag at half mastIn the sea of commotion that just disappeared.From the mouth of her dragon arose ribbons of smoke,And from her lungs phantom ships steeredPast her chocolate red lips every time that she spoke.

In her eyes I could see how serious she was,She said, “You want something like every man does,Maybe you are looking for what cannot be found,You tip-toe through shadows not making a sound,Or is it perhaps that you’re showing resistance?Cats as yourself disappear into the distanceWhere it all shrinks down into the vanishing point.”She puffed on her dragon with one hand on her hip,I took in the madness then sunk her third ship.

I too could play keep away I thought,Especially while holding my breath between every shot,I forced her to watch her dragon turn into a gargoyle,Then her sea of commotion that ran into dry soil.There at the shoreline seagulls are perchingUpon the skulls of her pirates that went out searching

For the edge of existence that recedes into forever.I’m certain she felt my pulse through the hardwood floor,I took in one last long drag then went on to severThe head of her gargoyle after it let out one final roar.

“The crossroads could be anywhere,” she told me,“The pleasures of life come to those that hold me.Or was it to those that don’t play keep away?”I didn’t even think of connecting the black to the gray,My actions resulted from a need to survive,Her dragon was doomed after being handed over alive,And there was no chance her gargoyle keep its own mind.She went on, “Everyone gets over their initial nervousness.In the presence of beauty you will come to findThat all feelings of mad bliss require my services.”

I wondered a bit about her magic touch,The difference between pleasure and pain is never that muchHer brown eyes were spear points that pierced me head on,She could tell I was looking to somehow spread dawn.I knew she was willing to help me ignite it,What I wanted to do was catch the first beam and ride itRight into the realm that simply keeps going.Perhaps she knew places that have never been haunted,She asked, “Why go upstream if you know you’re not rowing?”I saw her straight on and then I just grunted.

It was more than just conscience that kept me silent,The screams at the intersection were always too violent,She was instrumental at helping distort them,She knew I admired both the petals and the thorns on the stem.Impulse itself would never allow me to follow the leader,All this talk about bodies of water just turned up the heaterAs I went against everything coming toward me.She puckered her lips to help me forget,My rebellious tendencies would always reward me,But this was the first time these opposite forces have met.

The surface reflection has it all to depict,The current was something I learned to contradict,The heat wave came rising in no hurry to settle,I wondered how she did it to quench every petal.She said, “It ain’t easy when everything is dying,”Leaning toward me she rambled on about every well dryingAs the rapids descending beat against my chest.Who would have known the whole thing could have been cursed?In my desperation there was no further need to protest,I reached for the liquid red velvet and quenched my thirst.

She was coming toward me with forward momentum,Her radiance flashed through every color of the spectrum,She said something that garbled with her unusual intention,And just as usual I was not paying too much attention.I was thinking the temporal was merely for mortalsAs I dove in head on through those obsidian portalsInto a whirlpool vortex spun right into oblivion.In my delirium absence took over without hesitation,I always respected the properties of sacred obsidian,And maybe I was thinking it was all in my imagination.

That ruby-red iron solution was quite a concoction,Even I thought I’d fall for the old time seduction,This modern rendition was quick and updated,In a visionary way I felt I had somehow made it.Even the whirlwind deciphered what I was thinking,There was nothing else there when it all went down sinkingIn an ancient conspiracy that brews the right blend.Her curvature came flashing and I tasted her tongue,Jade pendants were dangling and I would look for no endWith her inner thigh flashing and the moment so young.

All I can say is that time just stood still,Trampling through thorn bushes I lost all power of will,I still didn’t know if she was my ally or rival,I felt her soft lips and the ceiling went around in a spiral.It all compelled me to get lost in the rapture,This hummingbird played hard, always evading captureTo the point where surrender was a dead man’s confession.The moment was speeding through my adventurous quest,And I didn’t even get to ask what was her professionAs she plunged an obsidian blade just under my chest.

Excerpt from "La revolución emplumada | the revolution is to be human" by Arnoldo Garcia

Excerpt from "La revolución emplumada | the revolution is to be human"

by Arnoldo Garcia

[excerpts | extractos}

my ancestorshave not yetinvented the wheel

they will never run overinnocent animalspossumdeerbuffalowolvesraccoonbirdsbutterfliesinsects

they will never pave overacquifersdam or divert waternever stop the flowof rivers, creeks, streamsto the cosmic ocean of the natural world

my ancestorswill never inventthe wheelthe bombwill never fiddle with DNAwill never fertilize in vitro anythingthey will walkwhere humans can walkthey will lovewhere humans can lovethey will praywhere humans can praythey will be humanwhere humans can be humanthey will never be gabaxosthat step on plants and other ancestorsrecklesslythey will neverdefecate or urinatein the soul of the earthin the water

[2]Our revolutionhas no martyrsour martyrshave no revolution.

we have no revolutionyet we have martyrsyoung men and boyswho kill each otherbecause we have no revolutionpolice who shoot black young men in the back or in the front

The border brothersmake north and south

the north is nothing without the souththe south cannot exist without the northyet young men and boyskill each otherfor lack of the four directionsthe border brothers are bothnorth and southNorth is a borderSouth of the borderNorth borders Souththey are lost in their venganzawe are lost without a plumed revolution[...]

1. "Cross Roads" by Poeta PowerLa Erika is Erika Marie Garza-Johnson. She is from Elsa, Texas a small town in the southern tip. La Musa Gloria Anzaldua inspired her to write the poem "Crossroads" while she was at the Mundo Zurdo Conference at UTSA. La Erika is an MFA candidate at University of Texas Pan American in Edinburg. Her work has appeared in Border Senses, LUNG, and The Texas Observer. Currently, she resides in McAllen, Texas with her two kids, two cats, one dog, a step-son and loving husband.

2. "Last Words" by Manuel LozanoManuel Lozano, self-taught writer and artist, lives in El Paso, “El Chuco,” Texas, cradle of the pachuco. Manuel writes traditional verse “to the rhythm of the Matachines.” His work has appeared in Xican@ Poetry Daily and La Bloga. Visit his blog, Manuel Lozano: Xicano Writing, at www.manuellozano7.blogspot.com for more information.

3. Excerpt from "La revolución emplumada | the revolution is to be human" by Arnoldo Garcia.

Arnoldo Garcia, músico, poeta, escritor-organizador, lives and works in Oakland, California at the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and serves on the Board of Directors of Centro Legal de La Raza. His bloga covers the center of the universe and has more poems & essays: http://lacarpadelfeo.blogspot.com

Francisco X. Alarcón, award winning Chicano poet and educator, is author of twelve volumes of poetry, including, From the Other Side of Night: Selected and New Poems (University of Arizona Press 2002), and Snake Poems: An Aztec Invocation (Chronicle Books 1992) His latest book is Ce•Uno•One: Poems for the New Sun (Swan Scythe Press 2010). His book of bilingual poetry for children, Animal Poems of the Iguazú (Children’s Book Press 2008), was selected as a Notable Book for a Global Society by the International Reading Association. His previous bilingual book titled Poems to Dream Together (Lee & Low Books 2005) was awarded the 2006 Jane Addams Honor Book Award. He has been a finalist nominated for Poet Laureate of California in two occasions. He teaches at the University of California, Davis.Francisco recently participated in the First Children’s Poetry Festival in El Salvador (Nov. 8-10, 2010) and was able to visit Monseñor Oscar Arnulfo Romero’s tomb beneath the metropolitan cathedral of San Salvador. Monseñor Romero was killed saying mass in 1980 marking one of the most violent periods of the civil war in El Salvador.He created a new Facebook page, POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070 that is getting lots of poetry submissions and comments. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Poets-Responding-to-SB-1070/117494558268757?ref=ts